In this episode we celebrate International Women’s Day by revealing the hidden gender inequities that lead to gender-based violence and more importantly what can be done to instigate change.

It is the first of two episodes celebrating International Women’s Day and features a Kenyan community based participatory research project by Beate Ringwald (PhD student) from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine who worked in partnership with LVCT Health (including our guests) and 11 community co-researchers from Gitathuru village in Korogocho. The study aimed to strengthen community capacity to prevent intimate partner violence and HIV.

Veronica Mwania and Maria Muthoki take us through a participatory research journey, discussing the ways that they engaged co-researchers whilst considering and addressing power structures of inequity. They talk about how knowledge was generated through creativity, dialogue and awareness raising which was embedded and transferred to communities through drama, word of mouth and art.

More about our guests:

Maria Muthoki – Researcher, Kemri, LVCT, Infinite Insight (among others)

Maria Muthoki is a freelance researcher based in Nairobi, Kenya and has 14 of years of professional research experience. She has done both social and market research, involving mainly qualitative and sometimes quantitative methods. Maria Muthoki worked with LVCT Health, as part of the Accountability for Informal Urban Equity Hub (ARISE), to support this community-based participatory PhD study on the intersections of HIV and intimate partner violence in an informal settlement in Nairobi. She worked with a diverse group of community co-researchers from an informal settlement. While her main role was documentation and management of data, she also supported co-researchers to analyse data and disseminate findings. Maria loves talking to people and understanding their viewpoint on the studies that she conducts.

Veronicah Mwania - Independent Researcher, Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)

Veronica Mwania has a background in applied psychology and has been an independent researcher for 17 years in Kenya. She has worked for LVCT Health on various research studies, including the participatory study that we will be hearing about in this episode. She is currently working with the Kenya Medical Research Institute on a study involving mental health screening for adolescents who are living with HIV.

Veronica’s work in this project blended intersectionality and participatory research approaches working with a diverse group of community co-researchers who were equal partners in the research process. Intersectionality links theory and action – the formation of theory through practice by marginalised groups and the use of knowledge to challenge inequalities in everyday life. By applying a participatory health research approach, the team sought to mitigate the risk of their research being a closed space, reproducing unequal power structures, and being irrelevant. In line with participatory and intersectionality research guidelines, they paid attention to power, time, space, and diversity of knowledge; and promoted reflexivity, equity, and opportunities for collective action.

Useful links:

• A research journey that brought power theories to life: Lessons from Korogocho, Kenya | ARISE [Blog]

• The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on community-based participatory research: Reflections from a study in an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya | ARISE

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Hello listeners and welcome to the Connecting Citizens to Science Podcast.

A podcast about connecting people and communities to science or research so that we can join forces together to catalyse sustainable

This episode is all about celebrating women and celebrating equity.

Let's meet our guests.

We have Veronica Mwania who has a background in applied psychology and has been an independent researcher for 17 years in Kenya.

She has worked for LVCT Health on various research studies, including the participatory study that we will be hearing about today.

She is currently working with the Kenya Medical Research Institute on a study involving mental health

We also have Mary Muthoki, who is also an independent researcher working at the Kenya Medical Research Institute

She is an expert in social and market research and was also a researcher on the community-based

So, let's start off by exploring what does International Women's Day mean for you, and why is it important?

Veronica.

For me, International Women's Day special because I was raised in a family of working

My grandmothers, my mothers, my aunties were all working women.

They were empowered, and as I grew up and went into research, which I believe it was my calling and I managed to go into other

I am really passionate about empowering women and young girls.

That's great to hear and it's wonderful and we celebrate you on this International Women's Day as well.

Maria, thank you for joining the podcast.

We're really pleased to have you here.

So what does International Women's Day mean for you?

I think it's a day to remind ourselves that women need support because often women, some women have achieved a lot

But a woman cannot often do that without neglecting her family.

So women need support from both genders so if you have a female boss or a male boss, they should

I guess it's recognising that the fight for equity for women is not just about

So in relation to that, maybe you could tell us a bit about the work that you've been doing in Kenya at the moment.

I understand it was with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and was around gender-based violence.

Tell us a bit more about it.

We were doing a community based participatory study.

It was about uh, intersection of HIV and intimate partner violence.

So we looked at several things, mostly was about the power that, women have uh, uh, or don't have often when in such a community where

We were looking at how that affected now their partnerships, partnerships, and the GBV.

Often some women had to stay in situations that where they were being sexually, uh, abused or, uh, uh, physically

We were looking at how can these women also get power for themselves, so that with that power,

Now, this is very important because while involving the community helps us to know, now how can we help those

They know some of the practical ways that their lives can be changed because we don't understand the area, because we don't live there.

But when you participate to them, you see some of the solutions that can be found there because you have experts on the ground.

Thank you very much.

That really helps me to understand and it sounds like it's a very sensitive area where you are discussing a lack

Veronica, could you outline the practical elements?

How did the study take place?

Maria said that, you know, you worked with women as co-researchers, but maybe you can give me a little bit more

We were very intentional about looking for people who are marginalised and people who are just not the normal people.

The first thing we did, we went into the community, learned a lot about the community.

We had to have meetings, which we attended for a while, not just one meeting, we had two or three meetings before that would

I remember like the first meeting we had, the people on the ground, our core researchers, were expecting us to just hand

When they started understanding the nature of the study and what we are looking for and the first thing that they

You value us, you think about us.

You are not just here to collect data.

You are here to really find out the truth about what is happening on the ground.

We recruited people from a representation of different people in the community, like young women who are mentors from LVCT who

We also wanted a representation of a Muslim person because the first thing we did was the mapping of the community,

We had 11 co-researchers over a period of one year.

It's really interesting you were able to communicate the care and empathy you had for the

Veronica, as the research took place over a year, the relationships between the co-researchers,

We worked together.

Different people from different walks of life representing different groups of people in the community, work together in harmony.

Respectful.

One of the things that was very important for us is confidentiality.

Everybody knew that they were part of this research, but nobody knew why the other person was selected.

The religious leader did not know.

We managed to keep confidentiality of people's identity.

For instance, none of the co-researchers knew that this person is a lesbian or this one is a sex worker,

The disclosure of identities was an issue because some of them feared being found out.

So we tried to make them feel safer about disclosure, but that was a risk.

We also managed to communicate and discuss about respect as a group, and so we developed, guiding

Each time we had a meeting, we had to go through what, uh, what the rules were.

Like, respect one another, share your opinion freely, listen to one another.

All this is something that the whole group worked together to formulate it's not an alien thing; we brought it from outside

We observed those rules and they guided us and the whole year we worked really well, even after exiting

Maybe one other thing we also did, we created a safe place where, of course we understand that the community is an informal

We had a, a way of verifying.

We had members of the core researchers who would go assess the problem and see if it's valid and if it's

The emphasis also on part of the risk was how, after we've exited, they're going to go back to their state.

If you were unemployed or you didn't have something coming in, how would you handle it?

We had to discuss it openly and see how they're going to manage and cope with the situation after the project is over.

So you've recruited co-researchers from different marginalised groups within an informal

Veronica, can you tell us about some of the methods, uh, that were involved over that year and what did they show?

So some of the methods we actually did, Qualitative interviews, we did focus group discussion with community members

We had a focus group with people living with HIV.

We had a focus group with sex workers, community health volunteers, people living with disability, young people.

The method was focused with discussion really.

We also had in-depth interviews that we conducted with organisations, especially stakeholders that are working within the community.

So we wanted to see how we can link stakeholders also together and see how they can work together to fight intimate

So what did the study find and, uh, how has the, the work been disseminated?

Okay, so the, actually we, it was quite interesting, the findings were for quite interesting, but we

For instance, if it's in a marriage relationship, you find everybody will think the man is supposed to be

If, um, someone is not gaining something from, you know, that is monetary, then the relationship cannot work.

You find women are taken advantage of by different people because of the hard economic situations in the community.

This is a woman, she's a mother, she's married, but her husband, of course, cannot afford to cater for all their needs.

So you find the neighbour, who is probably the landlord, they have not paid rent, so the neighbour who is the

Then she takes her children to school and she doesn't have enough money to pay school fees, the principle all

When the women go to work, they go for casual work.

The managers at the workplace, the industry, would want to have, again, a sexual relationship so that they can get a job.

So you find for women, including the person selling vegetables, the boda boda rider, that is the mode of transport they use is motorbike.

The list goes on.

We call them boda boda here, you don't have money again, the woman will have to give her body to, to get transport.

The woman will have to give her body to the religious leader in case she's looking for a child

I mean, the cycle just goes on and on.

It was quite an eyeopener even for our co-researchers as we continue to analyse, because we worked with them, collected data together,

Even as they went through the whole process, the thing that we know we left in Korogocho is the ownership, they owned the project and

So because of that, they have continued to work together to disseminate the findings to the community members.

They talk to their neighbours, telling them about intimate partner violence, the importance of where to report

Maybe Maria would like to add how we disseminated the finding?

Several of our researchers gave us stories now, as an informal way, that they helped their friends and neighbors,

They gave them information about whatever they learned in our sessions, plus now the dramas that they put on.

We disseminated to the people in power in the community itself.

So the chief, the police, and other people around.

Some of our researchers are community volunteers.

They deal a lot with the community.

The information they got, they used it, they keep using it, even now, on the community.

We had an FM station, where we did some interviews on them.

The FM station is based in the community, so I'm sure it impacted the community.

Tell us a bit more about the dramas.

What was the aim of the drama and how was it delivered?

The aim was, uh, to show how intimate partner violence may occur.

Sometimes, some scenarios are not seen as intimate partner violence by some people.

So we wanted to show the different ways that it can happen.

It can occur that even the woman can be the instigator and the one causing the abuse and how now money is involved in the whole agenda.

I would just like to add to what Maria was saying about intimate partner violence being normalised to the extent that

Then to some extent even, these issues are normalised until even our own co-researchers were surprised to realise that

They acted out the scenarios, the normal spin scenarios that may occur in the community, and so they prepared a nice kit that

It was a very good way of disseminating the findings.

The other thing we did that we forgot to mention is we had a local painter who painted also the scenarios of the nine things

Our core researchers each have copies of the thing, a painting, that they're able to use to illustrate the

It sounds like the creative de dissemination was really very important for this project and I can imagine it also helped

So really great to hear that and I'm glad you added that.

Maria, we are would like to end the episode by asking you what is your one piece of advice that you would

In a community, I think, community participatory research, I think that is a big thing.

Involve the community you are going to research or you're dealing with.

That way you get a lot of information from them, how to help them, because as an outsider, you would never understand what they need.

Also have men as part of whatever you're doing, because you will create empathy on their side.

If we can do that, that would really help.

We're not adversaries we can support each other to support women.

The man can do something to be a part of it.

I saw the men in the group change after the discussions, they seemed more empathetic, so they become a support system for the women.

Thank you very much.

Were there some recommendations for our global listeners around what can be done to try to address this gender inequity?

I think the first thing that we learned, when you work together with the community members, you see

For instance, they didn't even know how we were talking about power and power imbalances and they did not even know the

They're caught up in the day-to-day survival living, and so their minds will not go beyond their community.

So you find they're not really exposed to a lot of information.

Then there's a lot of exploitation also from outside, people who are coming to work with communities, sometimes you may not

So I think the best thing, even as we're disseminating to other global platforms, it's good to disseminate the information also

Thanks very much for that.

It's really about working with communities to jointly find local solutions that are relevant for that context and it sounds like the

The other piece of advice is, we also think about when we exit the community, how we can plan to empower the community

I think that's really important in terms of when you plan community-based projects, I think quite often we think about

So I think that's really a key message there for our listeners.

So thank you for helping us celebrate International Women's Day with such important, strong messages

To our listeners, please like, rate, share and subscribe.

We have another episode coming for International Women's Day, so do tune in and thank you Veronica, and thank you, Maria for joining us.